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CWmike writes to tell us that with the impending release of their Silverlight 2.0 product, Microsoft is poised to enact the next phase of their plan, wooing developers and designers directly. Microsoft is funding a French open-source project designed to allow programmers to utilize the Eclipse framework to build Silverlight apps. "Microsoft is also releasing for free a set of programming templates called the Silverlight Control Pack under its Microsoft Permissive License, as well as the technical specification for Silverlight's Extensible Application Markup Language (XAML) vocabulary via Microsoft's Open Specification Promise. The latter, said Goldfarb, should make it easier for would-be Silverlight developers."

Flash is multi platfrom and there is GASH as an option.I also trust Adobe to be OS neutral a lot more than Microsoft.99% of our your users already have Flash so why make them download and install Silverlight.

That's a strawman. Flash is available to everyone pretty much equally, whereas IE is not. It's not a "trap", it's just good sense. Silverlight has yet to show it's face on Linux or Mac. That means that Flash is still a much better choice if you're going to attempt to reach a broad audience.

There is Moonlight [mono-project.com]. In the end I'd rather none of these plugins, but if I have to choose, my preference is Flash. Adobe have shown support for multiple platforms, while Microsoft is pretty much delegating that to Mono, which is perpetually playing catch-up.

I agree, Applets aren't that bad but it may take awhile to get people to forget all those horrible java applets people used to put on their ugly sites. One of my favourites at the moment is Wordle. http://wordle.net/ [wordle.net]

Flex Builder [adobe.com] from Adobe is based on Eclipse! You can install it as a plugin into an existing Eclipse install, or install the stand-alone version. The open-source Flex SDK and compiler are both free if you don't want to shell out for Flex Builder.

Keeping in mind I am speaking in a group where there are huge amount of open source zealots. However Flash has the advantage that it runs in Linux, Mac, Windows (And more if you are designing for older versions) while Silverlight is only Windows and Mac.Next Flash is usually installed by default on Mac and Windows systems. (And a simple plug in for Linux... But if you guys are so smart you can probably add a plugin yourself anyways or the distribution has it already installed) Vs. Having to install it on Windows and Macs too.

If you don't need the extra graphics and AJAX method works good too. Plus you don't need to deal with the Closed Source Flash as well.

I seem to remember that the NBC olympics site (which used Silverlight) had plugin installation that was fairly easy with Firefox (which doesn't support ActiveX so it was obviously not IE only) and didn't require many manual user actions such as downloading and running an installer separately. Now granted, that was on Windows XP, but if it can be made to work with Firefox on Windows with a plugin then wouldn't that same Firefox plugin be available on Linux?

Except that a plugin is not available on Linux. MS touts Moonlight as a nearly complete port of Silverlight to Linux but in fact it's very far from being usable - even Gnash is light years ahead of Moonlight when compared with their closed source versions.

We can expect an open source Silverlight viewer? If so and MS has agreed not to enforce any patents on the technology then I see little reason for it to not overtake flash. Flash sucks, a lot. The sooner we have another cross platform app for doing online animations and movies the better.

Honestly having used Flash on Windows it was by far the easiest programming I have ever done (other than messing around with Scratch but that doesn't count). Yes, if you aren't used to JavaScript it can be a pain, but honestly, if you are an artist Flash is going to make you decent programmer (unfortunately art isn't my strong point so my Flash ended up looking horrible)

It really depends on which version of Actionscript you're using. Actionscript 3 was a marked deviation from AS1 and AS2. It highly resembles Java - Object Oriented, single inheritance, supports (multiple) interfaces, has the ability to be strongly typed if you choose, has packages, etc.

To further blur the distinction between the two, when you compile your AS3 project it actually uses the Sun Java compiler and compiles to Java bytecode. So at this point the only difference between Java and Actionscript

No more than Java, AJAX or Silverlight does. Most of the problems with Flash are the exact same problems that would happen even with Super Open Ultra Stable Plugin's stable version. Also, Flash is supported by a lot of things, the Wii can view Flash files, and so can the largest three OSes (Mac, Linux and Windows), and so can a bunch of other things not to mention that GNASH is in development and is OSS.

Yes, its true that Flash does seem to use up an absurd amount of CPU, but upgrading (or downgrading) your Flash player usually remedies the problem. And the x86 requirement is something that a lot of proprietary software has, though if GNASH ever becomes usable it won't be a concern.

Flash runs just fine on PPC Macs. I have a friend with a Windows Mobile phone that has no problem viewing Hulu Flash movies. (No clue what CPUs in it, but I doubt it's x86.) I dunno where you got the idea that it's x86-only.

Yes, via Novel's Moonlight project. And for the second part.. that's there too. I am not a fan of flash, developing stuff with it is always a PITA mainly the differences in ActionScript vs JavaScript... The moderately inconsistant APIs, and the fact that there really isn't a nice developer model. Flex approaches a nice model of development, but Silverlight leapfrogs it.

I didn't mean to imply that a license shouldn't be named after a project or foundation, but the Apache and Mozilla foundations were made from open source so their licenses have more cred than those Microsoft, which has been historically proprietary and anti open-source.

I am so sick of reading these tech articles with an anti-MS bias to them.

As a developer, isn't the point to write better/more robust code?? Silverlight is a tool that Microsoft is designing so that developers can take better advantage of the rich Internet experience. It steams me that the author of that article seems bent on pointing out that MS has this "ultimate plan" to kill Adobe.

Why can't people get past the whole pro vs. anti-Microsoft thing? I may be ranting here (apologies in advance), but railing on MS for their past business practices (which I don't condone, BTW) is pointless. I tend to use the best tools available for the technologies that I code for, and Microsoft has some good ones! Sure, they are proprietary, but it could be any large corporation in MS's place, and people would rail on them for being the "big, bad corporation"! Open source has its' place in the industry, as does proprietary software!

Let's get past the hate, and just stick to what we (developers) do best: write awesome code!! I get stoked when I hear of new technologies coming out (from MS or Sun, or whomever), since that means the online experience users want is getting better, and WE are the ones who give it to the masses!!

Silverlight is a tool that Microsoft is designing so that developers can take better advantage of the rich Internet experience.

Sounds like marketing drivel to me.

Why can't people get past the whole pro vs. anti-Microsoft thing?

While financials are right in stating that past performance does not guarantee future performance, microsoft does not get the benefit of the doubt. They have (and continue to, albeit subtly) acted maliciously towards their competitors for a long time, and will spread FUD whenever they can to drive users to the "platform of choice*", namely Windows and Windows-derivatives.

Not to say that Microsoft hasn't come up with some good things. The problem is that adopting these good things puts you right where Microsoft wants you: following them lockstep, but never quite able to catch up.

That said, your post reeks of cheerleader. Wake me up when Mono catches up to.NET 3.0 (I think they just got 1.0 WinForms support and are nearing 2.0 compatibility?)

Mono isn't a 1:1 implementation of.Net... they are compatible with everything in 2.0 that matters. They have a large portion of the 3.0/3.5 stuff as well. (.Net 3.0 is pretty much an add-on to 2.0, while 3.5 has some core changes).

I've tested and deployed a number of applications under mono, including one that was built for mono. It's pretty nice, I wish people were more inclined to treat it like a first class citizen in linux distros.

yeah? Which bits on.NET 2.0 don't matter (linux geeks - that was not an invitation to say 'all of it', k).

I wish they'd spent their time working on a better OS-level library for multiple languages than burden us with a locked-in Java clone (even if you can write the byte-code in other languages, where they fit with the.NET architectural model, that is)

I think that you are glossing over three decades of Microsoft stifling innovation, locking out others, and bullying. It is a very healthy thing to scrutinize Microsoft's activity and make sure others know to be wary of them. If they are going to behave differently they are not going to gain trust over night. But there is nothing so far that show that Microsoft is behaving any less badly than they have before.

I would disagree strongly that MS hasn't done any bullying... they've done a lot of it regarding OEMs, and in particular in the Win16 days regarding other versions of DOS. More recently, they did a lot to undercut Netscape Server out of the loop (not that it didn't deserve it). I absolutely hate the levels of registration/validation in Windows now, and even in Office.

MS adds a lot of value to what they offer, but that doesn't mean they get a free pass regarding transgressions of the past. However, on

Well it has more to do with standards. I don't want to have anything I do on the internet tied to one OS, browser, or even software supplier.Flash is supported on more OS's and more browsers than Silverlight.Also I just can not trust microsoft to keep supporting anything but Windows.IE, Mediaplayer, and VBA for Office all show that Microsoft will not support anything but Windows.That isn't really politics it is just logic. The internet should be OS and Browser neutral.

Agreed. The web is meant to be cross platform and Microsoft keeps trying to tie the web to ther OS or their BROWSER or their TOOLS (which then tie back to their BROWSER which ties back to their OS). This is why people are anti Microsoft because Microsoft is anti-open and 'anti-cross platform'. Everytime they make the motion to be cross platform, they ruin it by tying it in to something else or exploiting it or making it obsolete. They can't just leave something open and cross platform. This is why people are suspicious that the have never accepted the GPL or any other truly open license.

True, it's every person who cannot overcome personal feelings to look at the real issue. For both of those. But in this case, It's specific to the forum and the people who most often choose to flame here; For open source advocates, Slashdot is their territory and Microsoft people often come here just to bash. Some are less agressive, some more devious (ie I use said open source tool all the time but I a friend introduced me to said Microsoft tool and now I am an instant Microsoft tool) and others are true e

Moonlight [mono-project.com] is free and open-source, and isn't going anywhere. MS has offered technical reviews and support to moonlight developers, and you'll likely see moonlight in your native x64 firefox before Flash.

Saying Microsoft is trying to kill Adobe is "pro-" or "anti-" anything. It's an observation. It's what Microsoft always tries to do.

I think you're being just a little too sensitive here when talking about a company for which nothing is too low when it comes to smothering the competition.

Aside from that, if Silverlight is good, people will use it. Frankly, all I could ever get it to do is ask to be installed, even when it supposedly was. I guess it doesn't support Firefox. Flash is closed-source, a performance hog, and Adobe can't seem to port it to 64-bits even though they've been allegedly "trying" for years. If that doesn't tell you volumes about the quality of the code, then nothing will.

Silverlight is from Microsoft, therefore it will _not_ come without some huge club beating you in the face to lock you into Microsoft regardless of whether it's good or bad. This is an important consideration. Just when software is more cross-platform friendly than ever, Microsoft comes along and tries to set the clock back 10 years. No Linux support? Is this 1998 again?

These are important considerations above and beyond whether Silverlight is easy to work with and performs well. All Microsoft technology comes with a big ball-and-chain attached, backed by an obscenely powerful company who is not afraid to extort, intimidate and lie to maintain their advantage. For many people, that's not a problem and may even be seen as an advantage. For other people, it could be a deal-breaker.

If Microsoft wants to be treated based solely on the merits of their technology, then perhaps it's time, after 30 years, that they attempt to compete based solely on the merits of their technology.

Why don't you go to the microsoft silverlight site? OK, the presentation is a pretty awful case of marketeering, but what's interesting is that it makes a point of being cross platform and supporting a range of browsers, on windows, mac and linux. The presentation highlights mobile internet on phone, which makes me suspect that a silverlight implementation for mobile devices is just around the corner.

You assume I care. The only reason I tried to install Silverlight was because Microsoft suggested it in order to take advantage of their new download features. I tried it and it failed miserably. I don't even run Windows any more. I'll care if some online app I want to use requires it, _and_ I can get it running with a minimum of trouble. I'm through fighting and clawing and groveling to get Microsoft crap to work. They get one chance, and if it fails as utterly as Silverlight did for me, then I quit.

1. MS has the developer interia to control the market.2. MS continues to fracture the market, rather than compete. People like Icaza are mislead by MS, and end up being MS's Linux department. But it will always be a 2nd rate platform to Windows. This only benefits MS, because now they can make a claim that it "'can' run on Linux", but it actually won't be 100%, because they hold back some libraries.3. Of the stuff that is available for linux, it isn't available until way late int he game.4. Microsoft doesn'

Why can't people get past the whole pro vs. anti-Microsoft thing? I may be ranting here (apologies in advance), but railing on MS for their past business practices (which I don't condone, BTW) is pointless.

It's not pointless if they are continuing some ugly business practices. Not only is it enough of a track record to merit keeping a suspicious eye on them, they seem to be continuing it. It's enough that they highjacked the ISO standardization practices by stacking the votes or trying to throw procedures and votes out the door to get their Office format standardized, but they are trying to take control of the Open Office format as well.

I used to be platform-agnostic and hardware-agnostic, but after a few rounds of companies pulling platforms out from under me... "better" code that depends on a single vendor is something I have to look long and hard into before I'm going to jump on board. I don't care whether it's called NextStep or.NET, SmallTalk* or BeOS, if it's under the effective control of a single company it's pre-doomed. Over the past 30 years I've been burned too many times to trust ANY proprietary platform.

take better advantage of the rich Internet experience

Another buzz-phrase that was just as scary when it was the rich Desktop experience. That turned into a Microsoft-controlled virus hive. Not going there again.

I tend to use the best tools available

Me too, so long as nobody can pull those tools out from under me because they went out of business or changed their goals. I don't care so much whether it's open source or not, so long as there's multiple sources out there.

If Microsoft wants to change the world I suggest they try to create a tool that will just 'run anywhere'. Sure, they could create the killer Developer environment and drive the droves of mindless programmers to their wonderful platform, I'm all for it, but at the end of the day if I can't run the final application on my platform then its just useless. What irks me is that Microsoft puts so much time, effort, and money into making sure I can't run it on (pick your platform of choice, an

Nope. As a developer, the point is to build a relationship with the consumer of code---end users of various kinds. That relationship is compromised if the underlying technology is untrustworthy, whether for reasons of techical quality or otherwise.

At the moment, there are so many platforms of sufficiently high technical quality (including Windows) that platform decisions should be made on other grounds. For me: (1) is the platform portable? (2) is it susceptible to embrace-and-extend?

I am so sick of reading these tech articles with an anti-MS bias to them.

As a developer, isn't the point to write better/more robust code??

No. The point is to avoid market lock-in and stop abusive monopoly from *spreading further*.

If you ignore the politics of the market, you will eventually have no choice of technology. So while you are busy just wanting to look at the technology, Microsoft is busy trying to restrict your choice of technology. If you don't value your freedom, you *will* lose it unless others less blinkered fight the battle for you.

silverlight 1.0 had not XAML controls for the simple datagrid control. OMG what a stuff up! You had to go to xceed to get one and pay for it.
That little detail made me so mad that I have sworn off silverlight. The message was clear, if your a small development shop, you cannot afford silverlight.
Oh by the way, where is the automated testing framework for writting automated UI tests against it? anyone?... anyone?...
- StupidPeopleTrick

Silverlight 1.0 had no data controls in general, it was just for vectorial drawing and animations. Just a marketing trick to get the name out there... originally, Silverlight 2.0 was supposed to be the "first". It went from being WPF/E, to Silverlight, to Silverlight 1.1, to Silverlight 2.0.

silverlight 1.0 had not XAML controls for the simple datagrid control. OMG what a stuff up! You had to go to xceed to get one and pay for it. That little detail made me so mad that I have sworn off silverlight. The message was clear, if your a small development shop, you cannot afford silverlight.

Silverlight 1.0 development was a pain, most people opted to wait for 2. Silverlight 2 includes a datagrid for free.

Oh by the way, where is the automated testing framework for writting automated UI tests against it? anyone?... anyone?...

I waited for 2.0 to even look into it.. to be honest, I probably won't do anything significant for a few years... it could be the first cross platform MS has ever had that they support for more than 2-3 years.

I decided to send them some mail, letting them know that they were setting a bad example, and mail to their contact address got stuck in an SNTP look going through smtp-red001.mail.microsoftonline.com.

I installed Moonlight but the same message keeps appearing on the Democratic Convention site, and the Hard Rock Memorabilia site crashes FF. So much for Moonlight. It's a Microsoft perpetrated scam to fool people into thinking that Silverlight is portable to OSes not targeted by Microsoft.

So web developers should only aim to provide text based content because some people refuse to keep up to date?

Silverlight is currently in beta, soon to be launched. I would imagine that MS will do their damnest to get as much penetration as they can. And that means improving performance on FF (I haven't had it crash yet, but it is much laggier) and working with the folks at Moonlight to get things flowing there.

But hey, some people complained about this whole 'Netscape Navigator' thing back in the day. It's

Given that Adobe AIR is based on WebKit, and the OpenSource world has Webkit (Qt has Webkit integrated, but Qt is not required for my suggestion), why don't we just make a fully AIR/Silverlight clone using WebKit and Javascript?

In addition, Goldfarb said the new Silverlight 2.0 player comes with a cut-down version of Microsoft's.Net runtime. That means that.Net developers -- Microsoft says there are 4 million of them -- can build Silverlight applications purely through.Net.

So, is this cut-down.NET runtime compatible with the Mono cut-down.NET environment that Moonlight is built on, or not?

Wake me up when they support iPhone and WinMo. For that matter, wake me up when they have *Flash* for iPhone:-)
Also, I propose a Silverlight interpreter written in Flash. I think they should call it Flashlight.

From now until the end of time Microsoft's cross platform adventures should be tagged "Works For Now". As their DRM brand "Plays For Sure" should have been called "Plays For Now", as their "Internet Explorer" languished free of development until a challenger arose, the only thing certain about Microsoft product development is that there will come a day when utility is deprecated to further Microsoft's perceived economic interests. As soon as they perceive that either they have market ownership or that market ownership cannot be achieved they abandon further development. This is not progress.

Automated script to find the word Microsoft in a posted story, and auto post as anonymous coward with a pre-"recorded" tirade against Microsoft. Note how it didn't specifically address the Silverlight platform. This was a canned response, and one put in by someone with way to much time on their hands to code something to do this for them (or too much time to sit around while Firefox refreshes the page every minute until they see a Microsoft story and pounce).

You [slashdot.org] posted the same damn thing in the last discussion. Wow, 2 FP's in a row, good for you, but could you please write at least one separate troll for each discussion? How about a Goatse?